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Biden Announces Cooperation from Czech Republic on Missile Defense
October 23, 2009 11:35 AM
ABC News’ Karen Travers reports:
In Prague today, Vice President Joe Biden said that the Czech Republic will play a role in the new missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
Standing with Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer, Biden said a “high-level defense team” will travel to Prague in early November to discuss the new system.
“The new missile defense program is designed to meet existing threats in Europe with proven technology that will cover more of Europe, including the Czech Republic, more effectively than the previous system could have done,” Biden said. “It also strengthens NATO's defenses against future, more advanced missile threats.”
On Wednesday, Biden met with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who said his country also would participate in a revamped U.S. missile defense system in eastern Europe.
“We appreciate Poland has stepped up and agreed to host an element of the previous missile defense plan,” the vice president said.
“Poland considers the new configuration for the missile shield as very interesting, necessary, and we are ready at the appropriate level to participate," Tusk said at the news conference with Biden.
Biden’s three-day trip to Eastern Europe appeared to be aimed at smoothing over relations with U.S. allies there after the Obama administration's announcement that it would abandon existing plans for a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The White House announced last month that it was switching gears and instead of the land-based system developed by the Bush administration, it would pursue a sea-based system to target short and medium range missiles aimed at Europe.
The announcement caught the central European allies off guard and was met with great concern by leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic.
Biden's trip is the first visit by a high-level U.S. official to the region since the announcement and today he touted the revamped system as the best way “to defend against the emerging ballistic missile threats.”
-- Karen Travers
October 23, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (9)
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I'm a little behind in reading posts, but wanted to say, thank you Joe Biden. Very nice job and by all reports very successful. It's wonderful having Biden as our vice president...especially with regards to foreign policy. Excellent jog.
Posted by: Principia | Oct 25, 2009 6:42:58 AM
Unfortunately a sea based system does nothing to deter a Soviet incursion similar to their invasion of Georgia, and I think the Czech Republic and Poland both know that they are screwed if Putin decides to "take them under Soviet protection." All this crap about whether or not the system works better than a land based one is just that. Crap. The whole point of the land based system was to have U.S. troops in place that would give reassurance to our allies that if Russia moved on them, we would intervene. Putin is laughing at how easily he got Obama to get out of his sphere of influence in the former soviet bloc so he can get back to restoring the USSR to it's rightful place.
Posted by: Jason | Oct 23, 2009 9:16:33 PM
But when will the White House announce its agreement with the Press Corps NOT to exclude Fox News from an interview op as it attempted to do yesterday? Good on ABC and other networks for drawing a line in the sand on that one?
Posted by: Bob | Oct 23, 2009 1:25:02 PM
Of course. What is Czech Rep going to do? Obama might abandon them like he did Georgia. Or like the US did back in the 50's! Poland, Czech Rep, etc have no choice to go along with Obama's claims that he will defend them. They are hoping that although Obama got rid of the land-based missle defense system they will still get some US "boots on the ground". Maybe to monitor things or smaller land-based systems. The sea-based strategy is, basically, so Obama can "cut and run" more easily if necessary. The US is not likely to back them up unless there is less choice (we have bases/people on the ground in area). Particularly with an inexperienced President and a Russia with strong, wily leadership.
This MIGHT be ok policy for US interests but Eastern Europe is well aware that it is bad policy for them.
Posted by: Ed | Oct 23, 2009 1:16:43 PM
Keep your fingers crossed Czech Republic and Poland.
Every Obama decision has an expiration date.
His word is not good.
Posted by: larry | Oct 23, 2009 1:14:00 PM
Meanwhile Hillary is wondering why she did not get to the deliver this news....
Posted by: Shirley | Oct 23, 2009 1:12:46 PM
Thankfully Obama and his staff have realized their error and are working to correct it.
Posted by: Shane | Oct 23, 2009 1:09:30 PM
The headline should probably be "Czech Republic announces cooperation from America" - they were unwavering in their support for the idea, not us.
What happened to that "no-drama Obama"? Is he in an undisclosed location with "post-racial Obama", "no net spending increase Obama", "we must win in Afghanistan Obama", and "negotiate on C-SPAN Obama"?
Posted by: bgates | Oct 23, 2009 12:32:26 PM
The REAL AND DOCUMENTED press release from September 17, 2009:
"...this missile defense architecture will feature deployments of increasingly-capable sea- and land-based missile interceptors, primarily upgraded versions of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), and a range of sensors in Europe to defend against the growing ballistic missile threat from Iran."
Note the "LAND-BASED MISSILE INTERCEPTORS" and "RANGE OF SENSORS IN EUROPE" parts of the press release. The system they are proposing to deploy is one that has actually been shown to work well in a number of realistic tests, to the extent that Israel is also investigating deploying it (as a land based system) to improve over their Arrow interceptor system.
Posted by: jhw539 | Oct 23, 2009 12:09:30 PM
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